1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus which forwards contents of a received electronic mail (referred to as “email” hereafter) through facsimile by converting email data into facsimile data (referred to as “fax-forward” hereafter), and especially relates to an image communication apparatus which controls fax-forwarding of a received email based on a fax-forwarding instruction made by an email data in the received email, or based on a forwarding list and an address book managed by a system data of the image communication apparatus, and further, based on a forwarding size upper limit or the like.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, there has been a facsimile machine which fax-forwards contents of a received email to a destination indicated in the email by a sender of the email.
This technology saves cost of sending a facsimile to a remote party, and enables an apparatus which does not have a facsimile capability to send a facsimile by using an email to instruct fax-forwarding.
In this facsimile machine, however, the party which fax-forwards pays for the forwarding cost. Therefore, it is necessary to take preventive measures not to be misused by a third party.
In view of the foregoing, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-239263, such technology is devised in which a destination and a password are set in an email, and fax-forwarding is conducted only when it is determined that the password is valid.
A facsimile machine is also devised in which contents of a received email are fax-forwarded to a destination indicated in advance by a receiving party.
This technology enables a receiving party to know the contents of an email by the fax-forwarding even when the receiving party stays at a location where email is not available.
Further, such technology is devised in which a fact that forwarding is failed is reported to a sender of an email when fax-forwarding fails. With this technology, a sender of an email can know that fax-forwarding of a sent email failed.
In the conventional technology described above, however, a communication line is occupied for a long period of time by fax-forwarding when a fax-forward instruction for large-sized image information is received, and therefore there may occur a problem that another facsimile sending cannot be preformed during this period.
Also, such a problem may occur that the communication cost increases when a large number of error emails arrive.
Additionally, although the technology disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-239263 is effective for this problem when the sender instructs the fax-forwarding, this problem cannot be solved when the forwarding party who has received an email instructs the forwarding.
Further, it is of no use to report a forwarding failure to an email sender, and it may cause a confusion of the email sender when the forwarding party instructs forwarding.